Sanosuke Sagara: Ace Detective
by omasuoniwabanshi
Summary: Los Angeles 1947. Welcome to the world of tough guys and dangerous dames. Sanosuke Sagara is a private detective trying to survive in the City of Angels. Then she walks through his door...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin plot or characters.

**A/N: This is the result of what happens when you read too many Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet novels on top of too little sleep. Of all the RK characters, Sanosuke seems to fit the archetypal noir detective best, so I'm making him the lead character. This is Los Angeles 1947, so expect a bit of OOCness due to the change in venue.**

CHAPTER ONE

I heard the door to the outer waiting room open and close as I sat at my desk doodling on the notepad where I'd written the name and number of my last client, Mrs. Stuart. She was another satisfied customer, or dissatisfied depending on how you looked at it. Her husband was stepping out with the cigarette girl from the Coconut Grove Cocktail Lounge. We got it all, photos, hotel receipts, and the names of bellhops and chambermaids willing to testify in divorce court. It was going to be one nasty divorce. I drew another broken heart in two jagged pieces with torn edges.

High heels click clacked briskly across the fake marble floor of the waiting room. I didn't blame them. There wasn't much to see in the outer office, just a coffee table with magazines no one read, two chairs, and an aspidistra Ken nursed with the determination of Florence Nightingale with a wounded soldier on the Crimean battlefield. There was also a secretary's desk and chair set which were empty since we couldn't afford one.

Ken's desk, situated directly across from mine, was empty too. He'd gone home early after we reported our findings to Mrs. Stuart. She'd been pretty broken up about it, used up two of my handkerchiefs and a glass of water before we sent her on her way with the name of a good divorce attorney. Mrs. Stuart hadn't really thought we'd find anything so she took it pretty hard. You saw it all the time in this business, broken dreams and broken promises. I drew a careful 'X' through the heart. Ken went home right after helping the woman to her car. He's sensitive that way.

A hand rapped twice on the mottled glass window in the door to the inner office.

"Come in," I yelled.

Ken wasn't there to open it himself and I didn't feel like getting up. It was 5:00 on a Friday afternoon. I wasn't even sure I wanted another case though we could use the money.

She opened the door and walked in like a dream. I looked her over as she paused in the open doorway. She had perfect skin; eyes so black they'd make obsidian jealous, and lips rouged with a dark burgundy color that did something to those eyes. Her hair was pulled back off the sides and into a bun low on the back of her neck, with one of those stylish little hats about the size of a teacup with netting and jet beads perched on her head. It probably cost a fortune but did nothing to keep the rain off. The beads matched the piping on the edges of her grey skirt and jacket set. The skirt was long enough for even the cattiest dame to call modest, but it did nothing to hide the calves leading down to thin delicate ankles and the patent leather pumps that caressed her feet like a lover.

"Are you S. Sagan, the detective?" she asked.

Her voice was low and rich, like the kind of expensive chocolate you can't just go out and buy in paper wrapped bars at the local five and dime.

"That's what it says on the door," I agreed.

Her glance skittered over to Ken's desk then back to my face.

"My partner is out for the evening," I told her blandly. "Come in, have a seat."

She threw another stare at Ken's desk then came forward and sat in one of the two leather chairs parked in front of my desk. She crossed her legs and pulled off her gloves one finger at a time. Her hands were just as elegant as the rest of her, pale with long aristocratic fingers. The nails were shorter than I expected, manicured and painted in a shade that matched the one on her lips. Up close her eyes were slightly epicanthic, giving her an exotic look. She was Eurasian. Like me. Like Ken. Small world.

"What can I do for you, Miss…? I trailed off, letting her know it was her turn to complete the sentence. The 'Miss' was a good guess. No gold band on the left hand, only a small sapphire and platinum one on an index finger.

She gave me the longsuffering look a beautiful woman uses on men who want her name and a lot more from her.

"Meg, Meg Takani," she replied crisply.

I digested that. She'd kept her Japanese surname. I bet 'Meg' wasn't short for Margaret either. When I didn't reply right away she lifted her chin and gave me a hard stare.

"S. Sagan?" she drawled. "And the 'S' is for…?"

"Sanoske. Sanoske Sagara once upon a time. It's my adopted family's name. They changed it years ago when they moved here. My adopted father was one quarter Japanese. I go by 'San' mostly."

"And people call you Sam, don't they? They hear 'San' and think it's 'Sam' and you let them because it's easier, isn't it?"

She leaned back in her chair, cool and amused. I didn't like it much. I'm a quarter Japanese too, or so the Sagaras told me. I don't remember my parents. The Sagaras raised me here, in America. Like Meg Takani, I've got enough Anglo in me to blend in.

"We could talk about names all night, or you can tell me why you're here instead of wasting my time."

"Not much for diplomacy, are you?"

"That's my partner's job. I like to get down to business," business being a half full bottle of scotch in the dresser drawer by my bed. I'd solved the Stuart case, so I deserved a drink to celebrate. I'd love to celebrate with Miss long legged Meg Takani, but I didn't think that's what she came for. I was right.

"I have a job for you," she said.

"What kind of a job?"

"I need you to find something, something that was stolen from me."

"Why not go to the police?"

She pressed her lips together. Her eyes flashed anger, and it came out in her voice too.

"If I wanted the police I'd have gone to them in the first place, now do you want the job or not?"

"It depends," I told her lazily. "So far all I've got is that someone took something you want back. But I don't know you, lady. For all I know you could be that cat burglar who's been hitting the estate crowd in Beverly Hills. Maybe that's your game. Maybe you find some shamus and pull this sob story, pretend some big bad old rich guy stole your stuff and broke your heart. They get it back only it's not really yours. They do all the work and if they get caught all you've got to do is play dumb. Is that it?"

"No! I'm not a thief!"

She jumped out of the chair, eyes blazing, color showing in her cheeks.

"Calm down, I never said you were. We're talking maybes here. Maybe you give me the truth and maybe I stop spinning fairy stories for kids."

She didn't like it, but she settled back down in the chair.

"I'm not a thief," she repeated.

I believed her. I'd baited her but good and she reacted, not with a cynical admission or an actress's crocodile tears. Besides, I happened to know that the Beverly Hills burglar had the sort of arms you'd need to use a rope and grapple to climb a couple of stories and break into attic windows. The cops found the marks left by the metal prongs.

It paid to have friends on the force. Sometimes they sent business my way if it wasn't strictly a police matter. Sometimes I even accepted it.

Meg smoothed her skirt over her legs. They were thin and shapely, like her arms.

"The item in question belongs to my family," she said.

She raised her eyes from contemplating her legs so I did too.

"It's an heirloom, a katana. A katana is a…"

"I know what a katana is," I interrupted.

I ought to know, since Ken could go on and on about them, a side effect of having been raised by a martial artist and weapons instructor for the Canadian army. We had to talk about something to pass the time when we were tailing someone, and neither of us wanted to talk about the war.

Her eyes widened a little. "Then you know that some of them can be quite valuable – collector's items."

I shrugged. Guns were my weapon of choice, guns or my fists. The army's training rubbed off on me.

"This sword is listed in the Kyoho Meibutsucho. It was forged by Toshiro Yoshimitsu." Meg had the look of a schoolgirl reciting her lessons from memory. It was cute, but it wasn't getting me anywhere.

"So what's it look like?"

She sighed and raised her arms, hands out past her shoulders.

"It's about this long. The saya, the sheath, is black lacquer and the tsuba has a bird of prey pattern carved into it. The birds are falcons in flight with their wings spread out."

She dropped her arms. "Is that what you wanted?"

"It's a start, but you still haven't told me why no coppers."

"That again?"

"Yeah, that again."

Her hands weren't happy without anything to do anymore so she used them to fuss with her gloves, gripping then smoothing them flat on her lap. Her eyes got in on the act and glued themselves to the gloves.

"It's complicated."

"Then make it simple."

"The katana wasn't stolen from my apartment, it was stolen from my boss's house. I brought it over one evening to show it to him at a dinner party. He collects Asian art. I guess I got a little drunk. He let me stay in his guest room. That night there was a robbery. The burglar broke in through the study. He took some money and my sword. My boss has a wife back in Japan who has lots of friends here. If it gets out that I spent the night…That's why I don't want any police."

"What about your boss's money?"

"It wasn't that much," she said quickly. "He keeps most of it at the bank." She stopped herself as if afraid she'd say too much if she kept talking.

"Know a lot about your boss's finances, do you?"

"Dr. Shumei trusts me. How else would I know about his financial practices?"

It was good, the open honest stare, the way she forced her hands to stop fussing with the gloves, but the slight quaver in her voice gave her away. She was lying about something. I felt like telling her that it didn't matter to me if she was having an affair with her boss. All I cared about was if the job was legit or not.

I nodded like I believed her. Neither of us was fooled.

She cleared her throat and continued. "Dr. Shumei woke up and went downstairs. He saw the study door was open. When he looked out the window he saw a man running away. He was short, like a jockey, dark-haired, and skinny. When he looked back at the house the porch light fell on his face. He had a mole right next to his nose. Aren't you going to write this down?" she asked, pointedly staring at the notebook on my desk.

I flipped it over so she'd stop sneering at the doodles on it.

"Don't need to. My memory's OK."

"So can you find it for me?"

"Sure, for $25 a day plus expenses."

She opened the clasp on her little black purse and used my desk and my pen to write out a check then passed it across without batting an eyelash. It was written for $100.

"That's for four days. You'll get another for expenses after you submit an itemized report with receipts."

I whistled to pretend I was impressed. "Must be quite a racket, the medical profession."

"Dr. Shumei isn't a medical doctor. He's a research scientist and professor over at the university. I'm his research assistant."

That explained the short fingernails. She used those hands for business, not for show. They probably spent their time in surgical gloves. It seemed a shame to hide them.

Miss Takani stood and took a small rectangle of stiff paper out of her handbag and laid it on the desk.

"That's my card," she said. "It's got the university's address and phone number on it. I've written my home number on the back. Call me the minute you find out anything, anything at all."

I nodded and picked the card off the desk. Satisfied, she turned and legged it out of my office. I let my eyes wander as she left. Her stocking seams were straight, and her tailored suit fit snugly enough to show off her curves but not enough to hobble her. The doughnut shaped bun at her neck didn't have a hair out of place, but one of her hairpins was sticking out about a quarter inch from her bun. I wondered what it would be like to pull it out the rest of the way, and the others too, to feel that mass of silky mane pooled in my hands and find out if it was as soft as it looked.

When she got to the outer door she paused and looked back.

"Don't fail me, Mr. Sagan. I'm counting on you," she said, and then she was gone.

o-o-o

The next day Ken and I hit the pawnshops that weren't too particular about who actually owned what, and the art dealers who dabbled in Asian artifacts. Truth be told, there's not as much difference between them as people like to think, only art dealers fence goods stolen from countries while pawnshops fence goods stolen from houses. No one had seen or heard of a sword in a black scabbard with falcons on the tsuba. It was a bust.

My feet were tired, my stomach was angry about the hamburger stand lunch I'd fed it, and the sweat trickling down my back reminded me that it was summer in the city of angels.

Ken sailed through it uncomplainingly. He did take his hat off to fan his face more than once though, and that red mop of hair of his was sticking to his forehead. Ken looked less Japanese than I did, and most people couldn't tell me from an Italian.

I pulled the car over to a payphone by a gas station. Ken looked at me questioningly from the passenger seat of the old 1937 Packard 120 series sedan. My car was ten years old, but it survived the war, and that meant something.

"Relax a minute. I'm going to see if Miss Takani has a key to Shumei's house."

"So we're going to see the scene of the crime?" Ken asked.

"Something like that," I grunted and hoofed it to the telephone booth.

Miss Takani was at work, but according to the department secretary Dr. Shumei was not. This stumped me for a minute until the secretary said he'd taken an unexpected sabbatical and would be gone several weeks. That meant the house was empty. On the phone Meg was brusque. She kept it brief, probably because the chatty secretary was listening. It turns out she had a spare key. Sometimes people left them with friends or coworkers in case of emergency. Sometimes they gave them to their lovers. Meg didn't say why she had the key, she just left it with the secretary and didn't come out of her lab when Ken and I dropped by.

The secretary was blonde, plump, and could barely restrain herself from pinching Ken's cheeks. He had that effect on middle aged dames. We got the key and got out as fast as we could.

Shumei's house wasn't too far from the university. It was a mock Tudor bungalow two rooms wide in front and a lot longer in back. A side porte cochere sheltered a nice looking Daimler with plenty of room on either side of the car. To the right of the house was a vacant lot. To the left was another smaller bungalow with a garden and cutout porch on the side. An old man was working in the garden. He gave us a sharp look when we got out of the car, then went back to cutting deadheads off his flower bushes.

We climbed the steps to Shumei's porch, unlocked the door and entered. A wood staircase led to the upper floor, and a table with an empty Chinese style vase was dead center of the reception hall. We wandered the ground floor through a living room with two open-mouthed stone lion-dogs flanking it, a formal dining room, kitchen, and towards the back we found the study.

It had been searched and then put back in order, but not completely right. Indentations in the rug showed where chairs and floor lamps had been upended and replaced, but not in the exact spot. The desk drawers with locks had splintered wood where they'd been jimmied.

Ken drifted over to a side table in front of a bookcase. The books looked like they'd been pulled down and shoved back out of order. On the table was a wood rack with spaces for three things: a katana, a wakizashi, and a tanto. I knew that because I'd seen a similar one in Ken's apartment mounted on the wall. This one was empty.

"Miss Takani did say that it was just a katana that was missing?" Ken asked thoughtfully as he stared at the empty stand.

"Yes, she did." I answered grimly.

"And she also said that the katana belonged to her, and not to Dr. Shumei?"

"She said that too."

Ken stared at the sword stand a while longer. "Then either Dr. Shumei lost far more than just money, or Miss Takani is lying, that she is."

"Women lie," I told him. "It's what they do."

I saw him bite back a remark and smile noncommittally instead. Kenshin lived above a karate studio owned by a brother and sister. Their dad, a second generation Japanese-American, signed up the day after Pearl Harbor and died in the war. With Kenshin's rent money and a few students they were making it, just barely. Ken was sweet on the girl, Kaoru, though they were still dancing around it. You wouldn't think it to look at him, but Ken was nearly a decade older than me.

"Perhaps Dr. Shumei put his own swords in a bank deposit box or took them with him after the robbery," Ken suggested hesitantly. "If her sword was more valuable than his, the robber may have taken it and left the doctor's swords behind. What did she call the sword?"

I crossed my arms. "I told you before, I don't remember. It was forged by toshimushi somebody or other."

"Perhaps if I spoke to her…?"

"Nothing doing," I told him. "If she lied about the sword she probably lied about everything else. I'll handle her."

Kenshin Himura was the sort of guy you wanted at your back in a brawl, the trustworthy type. He'd been a sniper during the war, and could hit a target like no one else I'd ever seen, but put him with a skirt and he was putty in their hands. It's not that he was some loverboy, or that he believed everything a dame told him, it's just that he was the chivalrous type and it didn't mix well with the sort of women we had to deal with most of the time. Knowing Ken, he'd forgive Meg for lying, pat her on the head, give her a lollipop and promise to help her for free. That's what he'd been doing when I found him again after the war, wandering around helping people in between whatever odd jobs he could find. There'd been a woman during the war. There was always a woman. Something happened and it weighed on him. I tried to keep him away from the more dangerous dames.

"Miss Takani must be a very interesting woman."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Her lies are interesting." Ken smiled and headed out of the room. "I'd like to see the upstairs."

I followed him without enthusiasm. I knew what we'd find, traces of her in Shumei's bedroom. When a woman stays over more than once she always leaves something behind. An earring, a bottle of perfume, a handkerchief. After a while she sometimes even gets a drawer in the bureau, or a few hangers in the closet.

There was nothing. Shumei's bedroom was the biggest and the one with his clothes in it. It smelled like an old man's room, and the picture he had on the dresser showed a small man with grey threading its way through his hair. There was another picture of a round-faced Japanese woman, but it was much older, taken before the war. The wife, maybe. There wasn't a trace of anything that looked like Meg Takani. Not in Shumei's room, and not in any of the three empty guest bedrooms. All of the rooms had been searched recently as well.

We left the house the way we found it. I was just locking up when Ken began to crane his neck and stare up at the porch ceiling. He stood on his tiptoes and touched the edge of the porch light shade, setting it swinging so it creaked and tinkled as it shifted. It was one of those shaded light bulbs that hang down by a cord.

"Sano, please open up the door again."

"OK." I turned the key in the lock and pushed it inward. Kenshin had a look of concentration on his face that I'd learned meant something.

He stepped into the doorway, reached around for the wall switch on the left of the door and pressed it. Nothing happened.

I raised my eyebrows. He reached around to the right, pressed another wall switch and the reception hall light blazed overhead for a second until he turned it off. Then he walked back outside onto the porch and stared up at the porch light.

"Miss Takani said that doctor Shumei saw the thief's face by the light of the porch light, but the bulb is burnt out. Also, the study is at the back of the house. Dr. Shumei would have had to lean out the study window very far indeed in order to see the face of someone running down the side of the house by the porch light."

He stretched and gave the porch light another swing before going down the steps. The broken filaments inside shifted against the glass. I watched it sway back and forth a couple of times and then followed him down the front steps.

"Hey there."

The old man from next door ambled over to the low fence between the two properties. It came up a little past his knee. That fence might stop an overweight chihuahau from gamboling between the two properties, but it sure wouldn't stop anything else. The man wiped his sweaty brow with his shirtsleeve and grinned.

"Porch light's busted. I saw you monkeying with it."

Kenshin walked over to the fence and smiled. "Yes. My name is Ken Himura. How do you do?"

"Ed Grant. Can't complain. You?"

"I'm fine, Mr. Grant. If you wouldn't mind telling me, how long has the porch light been broken?"

"A week, maybe two. I told Dr. Shumei about it, but he hasn't done anything."

"Is Dr. Shumei a good neighbor?" asked Kenshin politely. It's amazing how much information he can wring out of people with the politeness angle. I stood back and let him work it.

The old man wiped his forehead again and squinted. "If you'd asked me that a week ago I would've said yes. Keeps himself to himself. Doesn't entertain much either, but two nights ago he had the lights on and the music playing loud. My bedroom's at the back of the house. The wife was ready to send me next door, let him have it for keeping us up so late, but then he shut off the music and it was quiet for a while. I think his guests left later. Most of them anyhow. My sleep was shot to hell so I stayed up in the front room to read in my rocking chair. Round about three in the morning I saw a little guy with a mole hightailing it out by the carport. He was carrying a bag like he'd meant to stay the night but changed his mind."

"How big was the bag?" Kenshin asked.

"Oh, about yay big," the geezer gestured with his hand and his gardening shears.

It was about the same distance Meg had used when she showed me how long the sword was.

"Like one of them army bags, you know, the duffle bags." He squinted at us and shaded his eyes with his free hand.

"Yes, I know of them." Kenshin agreed softly. Something about his voice made the old man take a sharper look.

"You don't look old enough to have been in the war, sonny."

I stifled a snort. I'd heard people tell him that for years. Kenshin was scrawny with a boyish face and a 'gee shucks' way about him that made people think he was barely out of high school. They underestimated him. In my line of work, that made him gold as a partner.

Kenshin raised his hands and shook his head. "Oh, I didn't do that much in the war, and I'm older than I look."

The geezer shot him a suspicious look.

"He was in my squad," I told him. "I can vouch for him."

He looked from Kenshin to me. "Just as you say. Look, I told the lady the same thing about the guy with the bag. She asked a lot of questions too."

"What lady?" I asked, keeping my voice as calm as I could.

"Takani, I think her name was."

"You know Miss Takani?" asked Kenshin.

"Not to speak of," the old man laughed at the notion. "I only see her coming and going. She drops off papers and such like on the weekend sometimes."

"Does she stay long?" Kenshin asked softly with a quick look in my direction.

"Nope. Just goes in carrying papers, sometimes boxes, and leaves soon after. Don't think he's so much as offered her a drink. I know he's never offered to have me or the wife over."

He seemed disappointed by it.

"Say, you wouldn't want to come in for some lemonade, would you?" He looked at us hopefully from under grizzled eyebrows.

"Sorry, we've got to go. Some other time, maybe," I told him abruptly.

I tugged on Kenshin's sleeve to cut short his apologies and started walking. The only drink I wanted right now was the kind you'd find in a bar, not the sort of drink grandpa was offering.

Dr. Shumei hadn't seen the burglar leaving his house. Dr. Shumei was gone, along with his sword set. Meg Takani had lied, about everything.

To Be Continued…


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Liar or not Meg Takani hired me to find a missing sword, so that's what I was going to do. If it turned out to be Shumei's sword, then maybe he'd be doing the paying. I hadn't cashed Takani's check yet, so she wasn't officially my client. That's what I told myself anyway.

I dropped Ken off at the karate studio. The evening classes were just starting so the lights were on. Guys who'd fought in Japan, who knew what the Japanese were made of and wanted some of that for themselves took off their work duds, changed into little white pajamas and threw each other around the room. If they were expecting traditional politeness they weren't getting it from Yahiko. Kaoru's little brother still had a chip on his shoulder from his stint in Manzanar. Kaoru didn't care about the past. She just wanted the present, and Kenshin, though he acted like he didn't see it. The studio didn't need lightbulbs the way she lit up when he came into the room.

I turned the wheel and headed toward a bar I knew. It was a dive, but it served sake the old fashioned way, hot. Plus it was where Katsu spent his evenings. Katsu was the only one left who knew the truth about my brother. Sozo'd been a Captain in the army when they sent him to take out a German general hiding in a captured French chateau. What they didn't tell him was that the general had his sixteen year old mistress and and four month old baby with him. After taking out the general's bodyguards, his squad threw grenades in when the general refused to come out. The girl and the kid died too; they found their bodies in the rubble next to the general's. That was bad, but what was worse was the fact that the girl was the daughter of a French count. She hadn't wanted to be a German's mistress, he didn't give her a choice, just took her off by gunpoint. The family raised a stink at the end of the war and to keep them happy, the U.S. army court-martialed my brother, pretended they never gave him the orders in the first place. They said he wanted the girl for himself. When the verdict came back guilty, my sister in law shot herself. I didn't find out the truth about what happened until I got home from the war. I joined up hoping I'd get to be in his unit, but the army doesn't work that way. We were going to start a detective agency together after the war. He died in prison. It was pneumonia or a broken heart, depends on who you ask.

Katsu still thinks there's a way to fight back. He publishes a Japanese language newspaper and peddles it around Little Tokyo. He knows everything and everyone in the community. If the thief took the sword because he was Japanese, chances were Katsu would know of him.

I found Katsu drunk and giving speeches to a bunch of bleary-eyed old men in a corner booth. The air was foul with cigarette smoke. I pulled him outside where the night air was finally shrugging off the heat of the day.

"Sanosuke! Old buddy! What're you doing here?"

"How's business, Katsu?" I asked, ignoring his question.

I let him ramble on and on about his newspaper, and his fight to get his father's garden and nursery back. His dad signed the business over to an anglo 'partner' when he was sent to Manzanar. The partner kept it when the war was over. It was all nice and legal, but it was theft just the same. Funny thing was, Katsu hated that nursery. He couldn't wait to get out of his father's house and away from the family business. Now he split his time between a battle he couldn't win and writing about everyone else's business.

Finally Katsu wound down to where he'd listen.

"I'm looking for a guy, short, skinny, dark haired, mole by his nose. You know of any?"

Katsu blinked at me. "Why're you looking for him? He's a chump."

"You know him?" I asked sharply.

"Sort of, he went to high school with my cousin. Name's Hanson, Peter Hanson."

"Hanson?" It wasn't a Japanese name.

"Yeah, he was always asking my cousin about the old days, samurai and all that. Toshio said he hung around with a big guy, Terence something or other. They were part of the orphanage crowd. Never got adopted and weren't related, but they were close, like brothers. Why do you care?"

"It's business, Katsu."

"Oh," Katsu nodded owlishly, jerking his hair out of his face. Geez. I should drag both him and Kenshin to a barber. They were starting to look like girls.

Katsu grabbed my lapels and stared into my eyes. His breath could've knocked out an elephant.

"So what'd he do? I could arrange for an accident, you know. Cars explode all the time."

I disentangled my jacket from Katsu's hands and stepped back. Katsu had been an explosives expert on my brother's squad. He'd been in the field hospital with a shrapnel wound when my brother went off on the mission that ended his career. Katsu'd never really let go of the past. He talked a lot about hunting down the officers who'd lied about giving Sozo the orders, but Sozo'd made him swear to stay out of trouble on his account so nothing ever came of it.

"I need him alive and talking, not in pieces."

Katsu shrugged and nearly fell over. "If that's how you want to play it."

"I do. You know where I can find this Hanson?"

Squinting, Katsu screwed his face up in concentration. It looked like it hurt.

"I'll call Toshio. He might know."

He smiled, then leaned over and threw up all over my shoes and passed out.

I got him and my shoes cleaned up then got him back to his apartment and tucked him in. I left him a note reminding him to call Toshio then went back to my place. I didn't call Meg Takani with a progress report. I wasn't sure if she was still my client or not.

o-o-o

The next morning Meg Takani was on my doorstep before I'd even had coffee. My scotch bottle was now down a quarter of a tank. I lived in a small room right off the inner office with an attached bath. There was room in it for a Murphy bed, a table with two chairs and what the landlord liked to call a 'kitchenette' – a postage stamp sized countertop and sink with room for a hotplate.

I didn't want her to see my humble abode, so I closed the door behind me and walked through the inner office to the outer one and unlocked the door she was pounding on.

"Why haven't you called…" she began then stopped short when she saw that I was only wearing my trousers and undershirt. Her gaze lingered on my arms then jumped away. Unlike Ken, I didn't spend hours in the dojo practicing martial arts. Between cases, I got up close and personal with the punching bag at the gym. Boxing is another holdover from my army days.

I stepped back and held the door open. "Come in," I invited.

"No, I'd rather not." Meg kept her feet planted. "I just wanted to know what progress you've made. If any."

That stung.

"The sword hasn't been fenced yet so I went to Shumei's house," I said evenly. "I saw a lot of things there, things that didn't add up. I talked to a nosy old guy named Grant. He remembered you. I also got a lead on the guy who took the sword. I'm going to find him today. Want to come along?" I moved forward as I spoke, filling the doorway.

She took a step back. It was that or let us bump chests.

"I've got to get to work. I've got better things to do than hold your hand while you do your job. Call me if you find out anything about the katana."

She lifted her chin, fiery and obstinate, but I noticed she walked quickly down the hall and took the stairs so she wouldn't have to wait for the elevator with my eyes on her back.

Katsu phoned a couple of minutes later, bleary but coherent. Peter Hanson lived in a cheap walkup on Bellevue Avenue near Echo Park. I called the karate studio and got Yahiko.

"Kamiya Kasshin Martial Arts," came his sleepy voice, muffled around the sound of chewing. Half asleep was the best time to choke down Kaoru's food.

"It's Sanoske." I use my full name with people who use their full Japanese names.

"Hey Sano," he mumbled. Kid has no respect. To him I should be 'Sagan-san'. I shouldn't complain though. After the war when we first started in business together I had to cure Ken of calling me that, and since Yahiko was always around he started calling me by my first name too, or the short form of it when he was feeling lazy.

"Get Ken on the line, will ya?"

There was a clunk as Yahiko dropped the telephone. "Hoi, Kenshin! It's for you!" I heard him bawl. Nice. To Yahiko, Ken was 'Kenshin' but I was just 'Sano'.

Off in the distance I heard Ken's voice and Kaoru's then a crash as something fell to the floor and shattered. Yahiko's voice came next, jeering, then Kaoru's, enraged. From the sounds that followed she was chasing him around the room, with Ken trying to break them up. I tried shouting, but the racket they were making drowned it out. I gave up and ended the call. I'd have to find Hanson on my own.

Hanson's apartment building must've looked smart in the twenties when it was brand new. It was 1947 now and the bloom was off the rose. Dirt and cobwebs clung to the indentations between the masonry blocks. The sidewalk was cracked and uneven from the tree roots that raised it. Trash had blown against the side of the building and no one bothered to sweep it away. There wasn't a doorman or even an intercom system. I walked right in, found Hanson's name and apartment number on one of the mailboxes set into the wall, and went up.

I got my gun out of its holster and put it in my coat pocket. I didn't know then that it wasn't going to do me any good.

I knocked on the door. It was late enough in the morning now that most people were at work. I should know, the midtown traffic slowed me down on my way.

"Who is it?" A thin reedy voice came from behind the door.

"Western Union," I lied. "I got a telegram for a Mr. Peter Hanson."

The door opened. Hanson was a little guy, not so small that he'd be cast as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz, but little. Greasy brown hair, watery blue eyes and a compact wary face completed the picture.

"Hey, you're not Western Union."

I put my hand flat on his chest and pushed him into the room.

"No kidding, genius."

"Hey, you can't do that!"

I closed the door behind me.

"I just did."

Hanson spat on the floor and put his mitts up. He'd been in a boxing ring before, but so had I.

"Scram, or you'll get it," he threatened.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me about the katana."

It was the wrong thing to say. A light went on in his eyes, a crazy light. He went for me like he meant business, jabbing with a right hook that grazed my cheek as I snapped my head back to avoid it. Spinning around he aimed his left at my groin. He fought dirty.

We danced around the room. He was fast, moved like an eel. I took a couple of hits and waited for my moment. When he jabbed I pivoted and grabbed his arm with one hand. Then I bent my back and threw him over it. He landed with a crash on the floor, gasping, the wind knocked out of him. I got to my knees and flipped him over. I got my handcuffs out of my back pocket and snapped them on his thin wrists then yanked him up by his shirt and dropped him in a wooden chair that hadn't been broken during the fight.

He glared at me and spat blood out of his mouth onto the floor. I'd hate to be his cleaning lady.

"All I want is the katana," I told him, breathing heavy from the fight. "I'm no cop."

"I'm not giving nothing to you," he jeered. "Nuts to that."

"Then maybe you'd like to talk to the cops."

He jeered again. "Sure, call them, see how far that gets you. I know something about that katana, see?" He was defiant, sure of himself.

I didn't see, but I knew someone who did. I walked over, reached around and unhooked one of the cuffs, threading it through the wood spindle of the chair back and re-cuffing it tightly around Hanson's wrist again.

Then I went through his place. We'd smashed the table, and one of the chairs, shoved the davenport out of place and knocked over a lamp. None of them were hiding the katana. I did a quick search of a bedroom with twin beds pushed against the walls, the kitchenette, and a bathroom and came up empty.

All the while Hanson mocked and gave phony suggestions. It worried me. He was confident, too confident that I wouldn't call the cops. There was a telephone booth in the lobby area downstairs.

"Stay here," I told Hanson, ignoring his burst of profanity when he realized I was leaving him cuffed to the chair.

The telephone downstairs was out of order. The apartment buildings on either side didn't have any. I got in my car and retraced my route in my mind but couldn't remember passing any gas stations with phone booths. There was a tiny little diner near the far end of the Echo Park Lake. It was the best chance I could think of so I turned the Packard around and drove there.

They had a phone, but the owner was using it to talk to his wife during the break between the breakfast and lunch rush. I leaned against the wall and stared out over empty booths and a few die-hards at the lunch counter nursing cups of coffee and the crumbs on their breakfast plates.

When I finally got to use the telephone it took Meg a while to come to it after the secretary answered.

"What is it? I'm busy now."

"I found your thief, Miss Takani," I said quietly. No sense letting the dinner crowd know my business.

"You…Did you find the …item?"

"No, and I think you'd better get down here if you want some answers." I gave her the address then hung up on her while she was saying she couldn't possibly get away from work.

I drove back to the apartment building, got caught in a detour when I tried to go around the block, and ended up going ten minutes out of my way. I almost hoped Hanson would give me an excuse to pop him in the kisser. By the time I pulled up and finally found a parking spot a block and a half down from the apartment building, I was the opposite of happy.

I hadn't locked the door to Hanson's apartment so I'd be able to get back in when I returned. Someone else beat me to it. When I opened the door and stepped in, Hanson was dead.

The chair was tipped over on its side. He was still cuffed to it. His mouth was open, but it wasn't jeering anymore. His eyes were open too, staring at nothing. In between them was a little black hole with powder burns around the edges. I walked forward further into the room to get a better look.

That's when I heard the scrape of the bathroom door. I was just turning to look when a Sherman tank ran into the back of my head and everything went dark.

0-0-0

When I came to I smelled roses and lavender. My head was resting on something soft, a pillow from the davenport I guessed. A cloth, cold and damp, was on my forehead. I opened my eyes.

Meg Takani was kneeling on the floor leaning over me with a worried expression on her face. She was wearing a navy blue skirt that fit her like a glove and a lavender silk blouse. Her hat was white close-woven straw with a navy band around the crown and her mass of hair was caught back in a navy blue fishnet contraption women called 'snoods'.

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked.

I had a goose-egg sized lump on the back of my head and the room, except for her face, was still spinning.

"Fine. Perfect. I just love getting sapped," I told her.

I pulled the cloth off my forehead and sat up to find myself facing the apartment's front door. I didn't look behind me at what I'd been sharing the floor with.

"You shouldn't try to move yet," she said.

"What're you going to do, shoot me like you did Hanson?" I asked harshly.

It was all coming clear now. No one but Katsu and Meg knew I was coming over today, and I'd trust Katsu with my life. I called Meg, and presto, Hanson was dead and I was laid out on the floor ready to get nailed for a murder charge. I patted my pockets, found a gun in one instead of in my holster where it belonged, then I remembered I was the one who put it there.

"What are you talking about?" Meg blustered. "I didn't shoot anyone! I…"

I took my gun out of my pocket and lumbered to my feet. Meg got quiet and white-faced, looking at me like I planned to use it on her. Ignoring her, I turned around and saw the wooden chair where I'd left Hanson smashed to pieces. Hanson's body was gone and so were my handcuffs. My gun hadn't put the hole in his head, it hadn't been fired, and whoever shot Hanson hadn't left their gun with me. The handcuffs were replaceable, but might be kind of hard to explain if his body turned up with my fingerprints on them. I put my gun back in its holster. I didn't know who shot Hanson, but it wasn't Meg. There was no way she could've hefted a dead body out of the apartment on her own, and she didn't smell of gunpowder.

With the gun gone, Meg was back to her usual charming self.

"What went on here? Why did you call me away from work?" she asked furiously as she got up from the floor. "I get here to find you've had some kind of a brawl and then you have the nerve to accuse me of murder? Why you…"

I caught her by the wrists and pulled her to me. She tried to knee me but she was already too close for that. My head was pounding and I was still a little dizzy from the goose-egg on my head, but I wasn't too dizzy for this.

I kissed her. She was warm, soft in my arms. It went on for a while.

It wasn't working.

I opened my eyes. Hers were already open, staring at something off in the distance over my shoulder. Something that wasn't there, like she wasn't there. Her body was limp and unresisting. She just wasn't in it.

I moved my hands from her back to her arms and stepped back carefully. She kept her feet under her and didn't fold, which was a good sign.

Gradually the life came back into her eyes. She looked at me. I looked back. Her mouth moved softly, like she was about to say something, then her lips hardened. It matched the expression in her eyes. She had the look of a woman getting ready to slap.

Police sirens wailed from outside the window, getting closer.

"Skip it," I told her, cutting her sneer short. I grabbed her by the wrist and we ran for it.

To Be Continued…

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. Tweaking this chapter took a little longer than I'd thought. I had the worst time coming up with a word to describe Megumi's attitude towards Sanosuke when she confronted him at his office door. I wanted to convey that she was sticking up for herself and standing her ground resolutely, but all I could come up with was the word 'obstinate'. If anyone can think of a better one, please let me know, or just leave a review and tell me what you think of the chapter as a whole. Reviews are always welcome!**


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Meg went back to work. She wouldn't let me drive her. She caught a taxi in front of the large white church across from Echo Park and didn't look back out the window as it drove away. I hoofed it back to my car. Police cars were pulled up in front of a small house with a dead grass yard across the street from the lake. The cops were manhandling a fat man in cuffs into the back of a squad car. He went quietly. I kept walking. The police weren't there for me, not today.

Ken was in the office when I got back. I told him what happened. Predictably, he was all for going to the police, but without a body to show them we'd just be a nuisance. Besides, I'd been hit on the head. Fat lot of good I'd be as a witness. I convinced him we should go back to the apartment house and talk to Hanson's neighbors when they got home from work instead. Meanwhile I got on the phone to Katsu. He was awake, and suffering.

"Take some aspirin," I suggested.

Katsu told me in colorful detail what I could do with the aspirin and then he came through for me again. He always did.

"Toshio said Hanson didn't have any relatives, but his friend Terrence did. He had an uncle, a pilot I think. He was gone too much to take on a kid. I can ask Toshio if he remembers anything more."

"Forget it. I'll ask him myself. He still works down in San Pedro, right?"

Katsu sighed in relief. "Sure thing. You go talk to him. Now don't call me anymore. If the phone rings again my head is going to fall off."

Katsu got the phone back on the receiver on the third try.

I took Ken with me and we drove down to the docks. We found Toshio on his lunch break. He had a sandwich in his hand, and dipped his head embarrassedly to return Kenshin's slight bow. Toshio looked Japanese but acted all American. He knew a smattering of Japanese, but couldn't read his cousin Katsu's Japanese newspaper if his life depended on it.

"So, what do you want to know exactly?" he asked doubtfully when we told him we wanted to hear about Peter Hanson.

"Anything you can tell us would be appreciated," Ken chimed in.

"Especially about his friend, Terrence," I added.

Toshio's face cleared. "I remember him. Terrence Crowell. Huge guy. Built like a linebacker but he couldn't play football worth a damn. The coach didn't know what to do with him. He had the build but he'd trip over his own feet and couldn't throw."

"What about this uncle of his?"

"Oh yeah. He came to a few of the games. He always called Terrence 'Terry'. I think he felt bad because he never took him in after his parents passed on. I hear he left him a house in Silver Lake when he died."

"Where in Silver Lake?" asked Ken.

"I dunno. Why all the interest?"

"We need to ask him a few questions about Peter Hanson."

"Oh." Toshio took a bite of his sandwich. "Sorry I couldn't help much," he said around a mouthful of pastrami and rye. We left him to it and headed for the county courthouse and hall of records.

We found Crowell's address just as they were closing.

The Packard was almost out of gas and the bump on my head was throbbing, so I dropped Ken off at the karate studio and headed back to the office, telling him I'd pick him up in the morning.

I stowed the car in the garage around the corner and hoofed it back to the office building. I opened the outer door of the office and stepped into trouble.

A man was sitting in one of the chairs. He wore a grey fedora, grey pants, a white shirt with a brown tie pulled loose at the neck, and a dark brown jacket. He looked like everyone and no one, but even sitting down he had heft and bulk. In his left hand he held a cigarette. In his right hand was a gun, a Luger.

I had a healthy respect for Lugers, so when he told me to come in and shut the door I did it, then stood in front of it like a good little boy.

"You've been poking your nose where it doesn't belong, see?"

He gave a pull on the cigarette and blew the smoke out wearily.

"And where's that?" I asked.

"Smart guy, huh?" he commented dreamily, watching the smoke drift away. "I don't like smart guys."

I shifted my weight. His gun moved up a notch, pointing from my belly to my chest. At this range, he couldn't miss.

"Settle down," he ordered softly, watching me through the haze in the room. There were four cigarette stubs in the ashtray on the table. He'd been there a while.

I settled. He had a 'I don't care' attitude that made him dangerous. Guys like that during the war, they didn't mind shooting Germans or anyone in their own squad who crossed them. They'd be speaking softly to you one minute then shooting you in the back the next. Men got that way when they'd been killing too long.

"So what now?" I asked.

"So now you lay off the Takani frail. She's not your business. She's Kantrell's business, see?"

I reacted to the name; he saw it and smiled. "You're beginning to get the picture now, aren't you bub?" He took a last drag on the cigarette, exhaled, and stubbed it out with the others. "Lay off, or it gets ugly."

'Ugly' and 'Kantrell' went together like wet on water. Kantrell had been indicted by the grand jury lots of times but somehow whenever the case was ready to go to trial the witnesses all disappeared, or caught a bad case of amnesia. There was nothing too dirty for him. Gambling, drugs, prostitution, blackmail, he played with them like they were toys. He had several aldermen and cops in his pocket too. Looks like Meg Takani was something that belonged to him too.

The man hefted himself to his feet, the gun staying level the whole time.

"Move aside," he ordered. I got out of his way carefully, the sort of careful you use around a lion when you fall into his cage at the zoo. His gaze sharpened on one of the buttons on my shirtfront. It's the sort of thing a marksman does when he's about to pull the trigger. I tensed up, which is about as much good as holding up a sheet of paper as a shield.

Then the guy coughed, cleared his throat, and the moment passed.

"Remember what I said."

He opened the door and left. I walked over to it, tried to lock it, but it was broken. So now on top of getting sapped, nearly getting killed, and finding out that my simple retrieval of stolen goods case wasn't so simple at all, I'd have to call a locksmith in the morning.

o-o-o

Silver Lake isn't really a lake at all. It's a reservoir, but some real estate agent thought calling it a lake would improve sales, so there it sits, a bunch of water with concrete on either side. Houses and apartments sprawl along the hills around it. The Queen of Angels hospital looks down from a hill in case the residents get too rowdy and need some stitching up.

Crowell's house was behind a ratty two-story rental cottage that fronted the street on one of those long lots that begged to be subdivided. Ragged strains of jazz music and the sweet stench of marijuana spilled from the cottage through open windows with dirty curtains waving in the morning breeze. The walls hadn't seen a paintbrush in years and the raingutters were filled with dead needles from a pine tree that towered over the place from the back.

Ken and I walked down the cracked cement driveway past the cottage and the tree. No faces appeared at the windows or door. I got the feeling the last trumpet could sound and no one in that house would notice. It had the wrong numbers painted above the door anyhow. We wanted the one further on.

The house at the end of the drive was a bit nicer than the cottage, but not by much. At least its paint job didn't pre-date World War I. It was a single story building, the type of place bachelors like to live in, and married men like to put their mother-in-laws in if their wives insist on having the old dear move in with them.

We walked up to the front step and rang the bell. No one answered so we pounded on the door for a bit and looked in the windows. The house was dark and empty. Ken wandered down one side looking for an open back door while I took the other, wading through a patch of weeds until I came to the back fence.

"Sanoske?"

I went back to Ken's side and saw him kneeling by some lumber stacked by the side of the house. Weeds were growing up in between the two by fours, which were grey from exposure. Only not all of them were grey. Two of them near the bottom were face up, the unexposed yellowish pine side flipped over, weeds crushed awkwardly between them, as if someone had moved them then replaced them without noticing he'd put them back upside down.

"There's something here," Ken said softly.

I grabbed the ends of the paler wood planks and held them up while Ken pulled a long newspaper wrapped parcel out from under them. It was long and narrow, and slightly bulkier on one end than the other. Ken held it in two hands.

"I think this is it," he told me.

I grinned. "Finders keepers. Come on, let's get it back to the office."

Tucking the bundle under his trench coat, Ken nodded and we retraced our steps back down the driveway to where we'd left the car.

o-o-o

The outer office lock was still busted, so we took the parcel in to the inner office and threw the deadbolt to secure the inner door. Ken got some scissors out of his desk drawer and snipped the twine holding the newspaper to the sword. He flipped it carefully to unwrap it and there it was. Black scabbard, falcons on the tsuba just where Meg said they'd be, and a long hilt with black cording wrapped around it. With it were a small dagger and a shorter sword. Ken looked them over appraisingly, then set them aside without comment.

The longer sword, however, was more interesting. He flattened out the newspaper around it and set it down on top. He touched the tsuba lightly, wonderingly tracing the images of the falcons circling it.

"This is really old, Sanosuke." Ken never did get used to the anglo version of my name. He ran a fingertip lightly over the black cording on the long handle. "The skah's been replaced more recently; it's modern, not an antique like the tsuba."

Grasping the hilt in one hand and the scabbard in the other, he looked up at me from under the bangs that fell forward over his forehead. He looked like a sheepdog. I've really got to drag him to a barber.

"May I?"

I nodded. "Why not?"

He pulled the sword slowly from the scabbard and caught his breath.

"What is it?"

Ken tilted his wrist to and fro, gazing at the blade from all different sides and angles.

"It's amazing work," he muttered. "This was forged by a master."

He set it down on the newspaper, walked around his desk and pulled open a lower drawer. Taking out a small wooden box, he set it on the desk, opened it, and grabbed a small metal hammer, then reached for the sword.

"Hey, whoa, what do you think you're doing with that?"

Kenshin looked quizzically at me and then the hammer. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we were hired to get that thing back, not smash it," I said.

My partner tapped the tiny hammer lightly on the desk. "I'm not going to hurt it, I just need to see something." I got the impression he was laughing at me inside. "Trust me, I do this all the time."

"Uh huh," I muttered. I went back to my desk and sat down and let him go to it.

He pulled some little metal bits off the hilt then took out a little pin shaped bit and stuck it in one of the holes left by the metal bit. That's where the hammer came in. He banged gently on the pin until something fell out on the other side, then he repeated it with the other hole. Setting the hammer down, he grabbed the hilt and the dull part of the blade under the tsuba and pulled. The hilt came off as smooth as a woman's stocking off her leg. I blinked a bit and tried not to look surprised.

Underneath the hilt was more of the metal part of the sword, only thinner than the blade and not sharp. Ken got his face up close to it and gasped.

"Sanosuke, do you know what this is?"

"It's the tang, right?" I answered, proud that I'd managed to dredge up from my memory what little sword vocabulary I knew.

"Yes, but what's on the tang….It's the maker's mark. This katana, it's a Toshiro Yoshimitsu blade."

Ken was looking at the thing like he'd found the holy grail.

"So?"

"So the only remaining Toshiro Yoshimitsu blades are national treasures. There were rumors that some American soldiers were stealing sacred blades from the shrines and smuggling them back to sell them at home. Sano, we can't give this to Miss Takani, or Dr. Shumei or Mr. Kantrell. This belongs back in Japan."

I raised an eyebrow. Ken really must've been rattled to call me 'Sano' instead of 'Sanosuke'. He was usually polite and formal to a fault. I knew Ken pretty well after serving with him in France. Once his mind was made up about right and wrong you had as much chance of changing it as a Hollywood starlet had of sainthood.

"Fine, we'll call the Japanese embassy and ask if they're missing a Yohimitsu and if they are we'll give it back, but not yet."

Kenshin tilted his head questioningly. Despite the shirt and tie and the mess of red hair, he held the old fashioned blade naturally, like it was a part of him.

"First," I told him, "We call our client and let her know what we're going to do with the sword."

"She did lie to you," Ken pointed out mildly. "You don't really owe her an explanation."

He was right, I didn't. I hadn't even cashed her check yet. She was a liar, and probably a would-be thief too, but she felt like an armful of heaven and when I kissed her she'd looked at me like I'd poured garbage in her brand new convertible. Except for that one moment when her lips and her eyes went soft. Because of that one moment, I felt I owed her a call. Sometimes I'm a sap that way.

"She's still our client," I insisted stubbornly.

Ken just smiled and slipped the tang back into the hilt. I grabbed the phone and asked the operator to connect me with the university.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Sagan. I'll connect you right away," said the department secretary when I got her on the line. "Miss Takani has been expecting your call."

She sounded a little too enthusiastic. I knew she'd be listening in so when Takani answered I decided to be cryptic.

"This is Meg Takani."

"I found that item you were looking for."

"I'll be right there," she said and hung up just as I was telling her to wait.

I replaced the handpiece on the cradle and glared at it.

"She disconnected?" asked Ken.

"Yep."

"So is she coming by for the katana?"

"Yep."

He put the metal hammer back in his little wood box and smiled over it.

"Would you like me to leave?"

I saw where he was going with that line of thought so I squashed it.

"Nix! You're staying right here."

"Whatever you say, Sanoske."

Ken went back to polishing the scabbard and I pretended to look over some old billing statements until the knock came on the inner door. I got up and undid the lock.

"That was fast," I said as I opened the door and found myself staring down the barrel of a Smith and Wesson.

The man holding the gun was not Meg Takani. He was a lot uglier for one thing. His eyes were set closer together than hers, his nose was crooked like it'd been broken a couple of times before, and he smelled. He wore navy blue slacks, a greasy white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and a long trench coat.

I put my hands in the air and backed up. The thug walked in and closed the door behind him.

Ken sat at his desk but he had his hands full of sword, with nowhere near enough time or space to unholster his gun. He tightened his grip. The gunman saw it and shook his head warningly.

"Drop the pigsticker and put your hands up," he ordered.

Expressionlessly, Ken did as he asked, laying the sword gently on the desk and putting his hands in the air.

"You were warned," the man said to both of us. "You were warned to keep out of Kantrell's business. Now you're going to give me whatever it is she's racing down here to get, and then you're going to tell her Mr. Kantrell has it, got it?"

"Find another messenger boy," I told him. "I don't do Kantrell's dirty work." I'd had enough of people using my office as their private parlor. First the guy in the brown jacket, and now this lug.

"You'll do what Kantrell says, and you'll like it," he answered harshly.

"Now, now, Sano," Kenshin remonstrated, waving his hands a little in the air like he was shushing a kid. He never called me Sano when anglos were around. "I'm sure delivering a message won't kill you."

"Listen to the kid," the thug smirked. "He knows what he's…"

I saw Ken move out of the corner of my eye so I ducked and barreled forward just as the vase from the bookcase behind Ken's desk went crashing into the gunman's arm. Ken always did have good aim. The problem was, the guy was so meaty that instead of making his arm go numb, it just made him mad.

He was bellowing in rage and starting to pivot toward Ken when I caught him in a tackle, my shoulder hitting his belly and the force of it pushing him back three feet.

He recovered quick and starting banging on my back with his fist and the butt of his gun. By this time Kenshin was across the desk, bringing the scabbard down on the thug's fingers.

The gun clattered to the floor. He howled, and stopped banging on my back. Instead he brought his knee up hard against my ribcage. It was enough to loosen my grip, and he threw me to the side where I fetched up against one of the leather chairs in front of my desk.

Quick as lightning, Ken brought the sheathed sword up by his ear, preparing for a downward stroke, but the tip of the sheath got caught up in the chain suspending the ceiling light. Our office wasn't made for sword fighting. We were a small time detective agency. We didn't have the money for tall ceilings and wasted space. Trapped between his desk and the thug, hands deathgripped on the sword caught in the ceiling light, Ken had nowhere to go when the gunman swung his left fist in a roundhouse that caught Ken right in the middle.

Kenshin is plenty tough for a little guy. I fought beside him against the Germans, and I knew what he could do and what he could endure. I don't care how tough a guy is, when a blow hits him in the solar plexus, all he can do for the next minute is gasp for breath. Ken folded and dropped. The sword clanged down on the ground beside him a second later.

By this time I had troubles of my own as both I and the gunman dove for his gun. I caught the butt end with my fingers; he grabbed on to the barrel. We stood and grappled with it, then I elbowed him and the gun went flying behind us and through the glass in the window of the inner office door, sending shards flying.

That window would cost good money to replace.

I ducked under another left handed roundhouse, then straightened my legs and put as much force as I could behind my uppercut.

It caught the guy right on the chin. He went down in a heap like a sack of potatoes. Why is it that the guys who think they're so tough with a gun always have glass jaws?

"Ken, you OK?" I asked, between sucking in oxygen. I think I forgot to breathe during the fight.

He was still doubled over on the floor but he nodded and started unfolding himself, careful around the pieces of broken glass that landed near him. He scooted cautiously away from them and towards the unconscious lout where there was less glass. I walked over around my desk, and got my spare set of handcuffs out. I was just snapping them on the gunman's wrists when she walked in.

She wasn't alone, she was carrying the thug's gun. It alternated pointing between me and Ken.

Her eyes took in the scene quickly, lighted on the sword at her feet for a second, then came right back to us. She held the gun steady. Her lips quirked.

"You just can't stay out of trouble, can you?" she asked.

I finished fastening the cuffs and stood, slowly. Ken stayed seated on the floor, still a little white-faced from the blow. He looked at me, waiting for a sign to make a move for his gun. I didn't give it.

"Give me the gun," I asked softly.

"No," she shook her head decisively. "I'll be keeping it, and," she knelt down among the broken shards and grabbed the sword with her left hand, shaking bits of glass off it as she rose carefully back to her feet, keeping the gun trained on me all the time. "I'll be taking this with me as well."

"It's stolen property, that it is," Ken piped up.

She didn't even look at him.

"Maybe so, but it's mine now," she said. "I've paid for it, oh God how I've paid for it," she went on bitterly. She looked me straight in the eyes. "Don't try to follow me. I will shoot you if you do."

I looked back into hers. I believed her.

"So go, already," I told her. "I've got a mess to clean up here."

She nodded once, hard, then backed her way out of the office, closing both doors behind her.

"Sano," Ken started warningly.

I sent him a mirthless grin.

"I know, the sword belongs to Japan. Well Japan will get it back, after I get it from her. Call the cops, and stay here until they show up. I'll be back."

Grabbing my hat and coat off the coat rack, I left, sure that this time with Ken watching him, a man I left handcuffed wouldn't end up a corpse.

**A/N: As usual I'm not quite happy with the fight scene, but at this point if I tinker with the chapter any more I'll never get it posted. Please leave a review and let me know what you think. There's one more chapter to go.**


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

**Here it is, the last chapter of the story. My summer of noir fiction is now complete. I hope you like how it turns out. Special thanks to all those who left great reviews that I couldn't reply to (roosterboy, reader, and lara).**

I got my car out of the garage and circled the block tailing Meg Takani from a distance until she found a cab. She kept the katana close by her side until the cab pulled up so the driver didn't see it until she was already inside. He pulled away from the curb and drove to Bel Air where the mansion lawns come right down to the street and end in great big walls with gates instead of sidewalks.

The taxi driver dropped her off in front of one of those gates and she sent him on his way with a handful of bills to keep him happy. I drove past like I was going to the next estate. They didn't believe in sidewalks either. They also didn't believe in trimming their trees. A big weeping willow wept its way over the wall like a green theater curtain. I parked my car behind it and doubled back on foot.

The gate stood without Meg in front of it. A little black box with a button and a grill to speak into gave me my first clue as to how she got in. Peons like me would have to find another way. The top of the walls on either side of the gate had spikes in them, nasty things like the bayonet type finials the Huns used to put on top of their helmets.

I went back to the nice estate with the lazy gardeners. Their walls didn't have spikes, not the one facing the street, which I scaled in next to no time, and not the one between their estate and the one Meg Takani entered.

There may have been guard dogs. If so, I never saw any. Maybe they put them in their kennel for a nice rest when Meg called up at the gate and said she was coming. I snuck up to the house, keeping bushes and such between me and the windows as much as possible. It reminded me of the war, only bullets weren't flying. Not yet at least.

I got to the house and glued myself to the wall, ghosting down it until I came to an open window. There were no voices coming out of it, but someone was baking something. Crossing it off as the kitchen, I moved on. The next few windows were locked, the rooms dark. The last group of windows were the ones I wanted. There were two little ones and two big ones that acted like doors. One of the little ones was open and one of the door-like ones was ajar.

I pressed up against the edge of the little one and looked in.

Meg was there, sitting in an overstuffed chair. She looked tired. She was rubbing her hand like someone had rapped her knuckles good and hard. I shifted my angle and saw Kantrell leaning against a big oak desk. The katana and the gun Meg had pointed at me were on top of it.

"So, little Megan, where is it?"

"It's Megumi, not Megan." She sounded bone weary, defeated.

Kantrell's face was angular; some would say handsome even. I recognized him from the picture in the paper the last time he was indicted. The photo showed him gazing soft eyed off in the distance, his expression noble. He wasn't looking too noble now.

He walked over and grabbed her chin, running his thumb gently across her cheek, and then her lips, mashing them slightly.

"I don't like women who play games, _Megumi_." He emphasized her name sneeringly. "Now where is it?"

"I told you, it's in the sword, under the fuchi, the little metal tab at the very end of the hilt."

I grinned a little. I heard the touch of defiance in her voice, the sarcastic condescension. Kantrell did too. He growled a little under his breath before marching back to his desk and pulling the sword off it. He set the business end of the scabbard down on his oriental carpet and tugged at the little metal rectangle on the end of the hilt. It came off with a soft 'pop' and he dropped it on the floor.

Upending the sword, he shook until a little piece of paper fell out of the hollowed out cavity inside the sword's handle.

"Clever Dr. Shumei," he muttered, squinting at it. He dropped the sword carelessly on his desk and walked around it, out of my line of sight. I heard a drawer open then shut, and then he was back in front of the desk, arms crossed, looking at Meg.

"I've done my part," she said dully. "You've got what you want."

"That's right, my dear. I always get what I want. The trouble is, I don't need you anymore. Of course, I can't really get rid of you until tonight. The best places to lose a body can only be found at night, right off the coast. Isn't that right, Crowell?"

"Yes, sir."

I couldn't see Crowell. He had to be standing back somewhere behind Meg. I wondered if he had any friends other than Hanson, and if they were there too. I had a feeling Hanson was at the bottom of the sea by now. Probably because he had the sword. Bad things happened to people who had things Kantrell wanted.

"Hmm, whatever will we do until tonight to pass the time?" Kantrell's voice didn't make it hard to figure what he wanted to do as he leered at Meg.

"If you touch me again, I'll scream and keep screaming," she said.

Kantrell just smiled. "Somehow, I don't think you will. Crowell!" he whipped out the man's name like an order.

I figured that was my cue. I walked through the glass paned door and trained my gun on Kantrell's chest.

Crowell was standing behind Meg's chair, poised to put his hand over her mouth. He had a bunch of rags in the other hand to use as a gag. Crowell was the big guy in the brown jacket who'd sat in my office with a gun and tried to warn me off the case.

"If he touches her, I'll start screaming too," I told Kantrell, dipping my head in Crowell's direction. "Now tell him to take out his gun and drop it on the floor."

"Do it," Kantrell spat. His lips got so thin you couldn't stick so much as a piece of paper between them, he was pressing them together so hard.

Crowell obeyed, then kicked the gun over to me when I told him to. It got stuck on the edge of the oriental carpet so I had Kantrell and Crowell back up against some bookcases and leaned over to get it. I stuck it on the desk next to the gun Meg brought. She sat completely still in her chair, wide-eyed.

"Get up," I told her. She obeyed, still looking at me like she couldn't believe I was there.

"Take the bullets out of the guns, but don't cross in front of me." I didn't want anything between my gun and Kantrell and his hired hand.

Meg nodded, walked behind me to the desk and unloaded both of the weapons.

"What do I do with them?" she asked.

"Throw them out on the lawn," I suggested. I meant the bullets only, but she picked up the guns too and heaved them out the window.

"You won't get away with this," Kantrell said.

I smirked. "You're just sore your gardener's going to have to buy a new lawnmower when he tries to mow slugs up from your grass." I let my smile drop and got serious. "Grab the sword, Meg, and whatever was inside it."

She moved to obey, starting to pass in front of me, then she remembered and went the other way around the desk, opened the top drawer and got out the little piece of paper.

Of all the things I'd done, that made Kantrell the maddest. He almost charged me, but Crowell said something to calm him down. I nodded approvingly.

"Now I'll be taking the girl, the sword, and the paper. If I see anyone coming out of the house to follow us, you'll be burying them."

"Wait."

Meg's voice stopped me. She grabbed my arm, the one that wasn't holding the gun.

"What about my brother?"

She looked away from me when she saw I wasn't following and turned to Kantrell.

"You said you'd trade this," she held up the paper, "for my brother."

Kantrell smiled. It wasn't the sort of smile he'd give for the newspaper photos. It was the sort of smile that made your skin crawl and made you want to take a bath.

"He's dead. Dr. Shumei made one last batch so we used it on him. I guess we used too much," he shrugged in mock sympathy.

Meg made a noise somewhere between grief and rage and fell down. She was still holding my arm, dragging me down with her until I shrugged her off, but it was too late. Crowell was on the move. He shoved a chair at my legs just as another guy came in from the rear window and started shooting. Dodging the chair saved me.

Kantrell wasn't so lucky. The first bullet caught him in the throat. The second took part of the top of his skull off. He was shoved back against the bookcase by the force of the slugs, then he slid down it and landed in a heap at the bottom. I'd been standing directly in front of Kantrell so the shooter couldn't see him, he could only see me pointing a gun toward Crowell.

Crowell looked down at his dead boss in shock. Rage blossomed and he charged, not at me, but at the shooter. I was on the floor shielding Meg while trying to twist around to fire.

That was when I saw that the shooter was just some punk kid, probably new to Kantrell's operation. He still had acne on his face and he was staring at Kantrell's body with the sick shock of someone who's never killed before. The gun still had grass sticking to it. It was one of the ones Meg threw out the window.

Crowell's bellow snapped the punk out of his trance. The man charged across the room like he was about to tackle the quarterback of a rival team. I thought suddenly that his old football coach would've been proud.

The kid fired twice into Crowell's torso. The big man went down. The kid was nearly hysterical by now, eyes shooting wildly around the room. He saw I had my gun trained on him, dropped his own, and ran.

Meg was OK, shaking but not bleeding. I crawled over to Crowell. Blood was coming out of his mouth, mixed with bubbles. One of the bullets got his lung. The other wound was low in his belly. He'd been gut shot.

He was trying to laugh around the blood in his mouth.

"Guess I'll be the next stiff to hit the water," he said. "That's where we put 'em, you know. Weigh 'em down with rocks and dump them in the ocean. It's where I put Pete when I found out he stole something without Kantrell's say-so."

"You shot Peter Hanson?" I asked softly, just to be sure.

Crowell's eyes pleaded with me. "It was better that way, see. Kantrell, he would've tortured the guy, just because Pete liked pretty things and sometimes he'd lift them even when it wasn't part of the plan. I'll be with Pete soon, I want…"

I never found out what Crowell wanted. His eyes got all unfocussed and he slumped and didn't move or breathe anymore.

I got back to my feet and looked over at Meg. She was still on the floor staring at Crowell with quiet horror. When women get that pale, they need a drink. I looked at the collection of cut glass bottles on Kantrell's side table. Then I thought of the piece of paper in Meg's hand, of what it might be, and I didn't want his liquor.

I pulled Meg to her feet and got the piece of paper away from her and into my pocket.

"Here," I said, sheathing the sword and putting it in her hand. "Take care of this for me."

She looked down at it, nodded, and followed me out the door and into the sunlight.

o-o-o

We got out of Kantrell's place by walking down the front drive and pressing a button on the wall to open the gate. I put Meg into the passenger seat of my Packard. I made her put my jacket over her shoulders. She was shaking, holding on to the scabbard of the katana so hard her knuckles were white.

When we got back to the office Ken, the gunmen, and the police were gone. They were probably all down at the station having a merry old time filling out forms and getting to know each other better. The glass on the floor was gone too. Knowing Ken he'd probably swept it up. I never met a guy who took the old 'cleanliness is next to godliness' saying so seriously. I swear he even liked doing laundry, voluntarily.

I sat Meg down in one of the leather chairs by my desk, then went into my apartment for the bottle of scotch and two glasses. She tried to refuse, but I insisted. She coughed and sputtered but got a little down. It put some color in her cheeks and she stopped shaking so much. I sipped my drink and started talking, telling it slowly so as not to spook her.

"The way I see it is this. Kantrell got your boss, Shumei, to work up a new drug for him. Shumei crossed him somehow, wanted more money, a bigger cut, or whatever. Kantrell objected. Shumei wound up dead, but somehow Kantrell didn't get the formula for the new drug."

Meg shuddered.

"I didn't know what Dr. Shumei was up to," she said, her voice low and throaty from the liquor. "The first thing I knew about it was when Kantrell's men brought me to his house after work. Dr. Shumei hadn't shown up that day. The secretary said there was a message on her desk that he was taking a sabbatical, some sort of family emergency. I thought it was strange because he was an orphan and his wife died during the war. Kantrell told me he'd killed Dr. Shumei, and he wanted me to take his place making the drug, but Dr. Shumei hid the formula and Kantrell didn't know where it was."

Meg took another gulp of her scotch then set it on the desk and drew my jacket tighter around her. "He didn't believe me at first when I said I didn't know anything about the formula. He'd had his men search Dr. Shumei's house, but they couldn't search the lab at the university. It's too public and they wouldn't know what they were looking at if he hid it in one of the files with his other formulas, the ones he used for classes. So they…they…"

"They snatched your brother and told you that you had to find the formula, right?" I asked softly.

"Yes," Meg lowered her head. "They brought him in, after Kantrell tried to make me tell him where the formula was." She didn't look me in the eye. I could imagine how Kantrell tried to persuade her. "They'd roughed him up a little, to scare me, I think. They took him out again and Kantrell said I had one week to find the formula or…" She bit her lip and took another sip from her glass.

"So you went to Shumei's house, saw that the swords were stolen, and figured out that's where he hid the formula. You talked to the neighbor so you knew what the thief looked like and came up with a story that Shumei had described him to you. Then you hired me to get the swords back, while you searched the lab at the university."

"Dr. Shumei had hundreds of files that he'd brought from Japan after the war. The university hired him because of his expertise, and because the state department promised him a job here if he cooperated with them after the war, which he did. I tried to tell Kantrell it would take more than a week to go through everything, but he wouldn't listen."

"He had a tail on you," I told her. "He didn't trust you to come through, or he'd already killed your brother and knew you'd never give him the formula once you found out. That's how he knew to send someone here to get the sword before you could. Your department secretary, she talks a lot, right?"

Meg looked at me, lips parted. "She's the biggest gossip in the university."

"So all a guy would have to do is ask her nicely and she'd tell them everything about every phone call you ever made."

Wordlessly, Meg nodded.

"It may have been Crowell, or it may have been the other guy, but they found out about you hiring me. Crowell was probably the one who killed Shumei, ditched the body and searched his house, but his friend Pete Hanson was with him. Hanson lifted the swords, because he was into that sort of thing. Crowell knew that it was only a matter of time before Kantrell found out the swords were gone, and that's probably where Shumei hid the formula. Either he didn't want to go down with Hanson, or he really did want to kill him clean to save him from Kantrell. Kantrell, Crowell, and Hanson are all dead, so's your brother, and all for this."

I dug the piece of paper out of my pocket and held it up.

"So now you know everything," Meg said.

Not everything. Not what Kantrell did to her when he was persuading her to talk, not what made her go limp when I kissed her, like she wanted to be anywhere but in a man's arms. It wasn't the sort of thing you could make a woman talk about if she wasn't ready to talk. I wasn't Kantrell. Meg could tell me about it one day when she was good and ready to, not before. She'd had enough of gorillas pawing her and telling her what to do.

"What do you want to do with this?" I asked, setting the paper on the desk.

Her lips twisted. "I never want to see it again."

"Sure," I said.

I pulled out my cigarette lighter, thumbed on the flame and set it to the paper. Once it caught I put it in the ashtray. Together we watched it burn.

"You're a fool, you know," she said softly. "You could've sold that to any drug dealer in Los Angeles and made a fortune."

"So could you," I told her.

She shook her head. "I could never do that. I worked as a nurse in a hospital during the war. Some of the doctors gave too much pain medication to the men, because they didn't expect them to survive. They lived, but they were hooked. One of them told me it would've been better if he'd died. I never forgot it."

Meg watched my face carefully. "Were you in the war?"

I took another sip of scotch. "Yeah."

"Is there anything you want to forget? Things that make you feel sick remembering?"

Broken bodies, friends of mine, buddies, torn apart and no way to put them back together. Stupid decisions by generals who weren't there, who didn't know. Shattered lives, emaciated bodies left behind by the Nazis. There were plenty of memories. Ken had memories too, locked away. We didn't talk about them.

"Yeah, I do." I stared back, refusing to say more.

Understanding dawned. "If you can't talk about them, what do you do to forget them?"

Setting my glass down on the desk, I leaned in close, keeping my eyes on hers, ready to pull back at the first sign of panic.

"I make new memories," I said softly against her lips. I kissed her. This time, she put her arms around my neck and kissed back.

THE END.

**Epilogue**: Echo Park Lake on a Sunday afternoon wasn't the sort of place I ever thought I'd be. Lying on a blanket under a tree next to Meg made me realize what a chump I'd been for sneering at the Sunday afternoon crowd with their picnic baskets and kids. Speaking of kids…

I cracked an eyelid to watch Kaoru chase her little brother down by the lake. He'd called her ugly, again, and as usual she responded by threatening to kill him. Kenshin sat cross-legged at the far end of the blanket sipping iced tea from a thermos cup watching them happily.

"Don't you think you should do something?"

Meg's voice came from above me. I opened my eyes all the way and shifted my head a bit in her lap to look at her. Meg was sitting with her back against a palm tree, graciously allowing me to use her legs as my personal pillow. She was looking at Ken, who smiled back.

"Miss Kaoru would never really hurt Yahiko, much." Ken winced as Yahiko changed direction and dodged past the blanket with his sister in hot pursuit. Kaoru found a branch from off a bush and was running with it, shrieking like the kendo master she was.

Concern began to creep into Ken's expression as he set his cup down on the blanket.

"Perhaps I should go," he muttered and took off after his sort-of girlfriend.

"What he sees in that smelly tomboy I'll never know," Meg muttered, shaking her head.

I liked it. Meg was wearing her hair down today, and when she moved her head the sunlight filtered through it.

"Me either," I said, catching hold of her hand and threading my fingers through hers.

Meg leaned over a bit, arching one of her perfect eyebrows in surprise.

"You agree?"

I kissed her fingers lightly. "I've got what I want right here," I told her. "Besides, you smell a heck of a lot better than she does, especially after one of her kendo classes."

"Idiot," Meg said fondly, then leaned over even further and kissed me.

We stayed late, long after Kenshin escorted a triumphant Kaoru and a waterlogged Yahiko home on the bus. Kaoru had chased her brother into the lake. He came out wearing a lily pad the size of a hubcap. We donated the blanket for him to dry off and retreated to a stone bench to watch the sun set. We didn't need the blanket anyhow. We kept each other warm.

Twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses may not buy much, and Meg's job as research assistant to the new chemistry professor at the university would never make her rich either, but for now we had each other, and life was good.

**A/N: Please leave a review and let me know what you think – especially about the epilogue. It was a last minute addition since I felt the story ended too abruptly. It's kind of sappy, but I'm a sucker for a happy ending.**


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